What Went Wrong?

Sometimes when I can't sleep at night I think about my life. Analyze it a little. Question it a lot. But I always end up with the same question...what went wrong?

I'm the youngest of 4 children. As I've said before, I was a true youngest child - a spoiled rotten brat. I was painfully shy. The definition of awkward. Difficult to look at. My mom had a home daycare so I had built in friends which extracted the life necessity of learning how to make friends. A lesson lost on me that would have ripple effects throughout my life. The biggest effect being my lack of social skills, hence the awkwardness. These kids were a huge part of my life, until they weren't. These weren't lasting friendships built on strong foundations. They were families I knew whose lives I was inserted into. As if in the middle of a great novel a character is tossed in that doesn't quite belong and at the end of the book you never make sense of why they were part of the story. In elementary school it was easy to intermingle with the daycare kids. They sat by me in class, we ate lunch together, some came to my birthday parties and I was usually invited to theirs. Entering Junior High, though, was a difficult transition for me. I was so ungracefully social and lacked the ability to speak to kids my own age because the majority of my daily conversations were with my mom. She was my best friend and to this day the only person who knew me wholly and loved me anyways. I did make one friend who, bless her heart, put in all of the work to become and remain my friend through High School graduation. So, what went wrong? My parents were both very social. People loved them and they were a big part of our community. Regulars at the local Chinese restaurant. My sisters and brother are still friends with many of the kids they grew up with and tell stories of backyard bbq's, camping, sneaking alcohol in the woods by our house. Any one of them can walk into a bar and become friends with the person sitting next to them. My sister becomes Facebook friends with people on airplanes. My brother can move to a new town and have a backyard jam session with the neighbors before he's even settled in. My other sister cares so much for people in her life she becomes everyones mom; like people fighting for her attention mom. I'm a little bit of all these things. A shadow of these characteristics that don't completely come to light. It's a strange feeling made stronger by laying in bed awake overthinking my life and wondering what went wrong. The only thing that went wrong is how I think about it. It's so effortless to see the negative and just as easy to remember the bad things over the good. It's not what went wrong; it's what went right. Every experience I've lived through is part of who I am. Duh! These are the things that went right to help me blossom into the woman I confidently walk around as today. I'll be the first to admit, I was a slow learner. Maybe it was intentional?! I like to think things through and not make spontaneous decisions. I also like to emerge from the shadows my own person, not a version of someone else. The most important thing I've learned in life is to just be yourself and the people that matter will stick around. So take this from the nighttime negative over thinker - each day is a new opportunity to discover what went right!